130 SEVENTH REPORT. 



THE SCIENTIFIC NECESSITY OF COMPLETE REGISTRATION 



OF VITAL STATISTICS. 



CRESSY L. WILBUR. 



The |)]ace of vital statistics among the divisions of scientific knowledge 

 may be briefly considered. 



In practice, we find that vital statistics chiefly relate to the leading 

 vital events or conditions affecting hnman lives, namely, births, deaths, 

 sickness, marriages and divorces. 



These studied in their mass-relations, as pertaining to large numbers 

 of persons associated in communities, form the chief subject-matter of 

 vital statistics or clcmographi/ taken in connection with the basic data of 

 population derived from the census upon which all other demographic 

 data depend and to which the vital statistics proper must be referred in 

 order to be rendered fully intelligible. 



It is interesting to note that the general subject, demography, was 

 classed under the department of sociology in the arrangement adopted 

 for the International Congress of Arts and Science at St. Louis last year, 

 sociology forming with psychology the two divisions under mental science 

 according to the following scheme: 



Division D — Mental Science. 



Department 15 — Psychology. 



Section a. — General Psychology. 



Section b. — Experimental Psychology. 



Section c. — Comparative and" Genetic Psychology. 



Section d. — Abnormal Psychology. 



Department 16 — Sociology. 



Section a. — Demography. 

 Section b. — Social Structure. 

 Section c. — Social Psychology. 



Other sections with which demography bears close relations are biology 

 and anthropology, classed under physical science (Division C), public 

 health, preventive medicine, pathology, pediatrics, and perhaps other 

 branches of medicine coming among the utilitarian sciences (Division 

 E), and perhaps national and colonial administration under politics and 

 the family, urban and rural communities, etc., belonging to social science 

 under social regulation (Division F). 



As the section on demography failed to meet at St. Louis as planned, 

 owing to an unfortunate miscarriage of arrangements, I was unable to 

 learn the reasons governing its classiflcation, but without passing upon 

 the satisfactory or unsatisfactory nature of the scheme, the very im- 

 portant relations of this branch of science mav be clearlv inferred. 



Dealing with man as an animal, many facts of biological importance 

 relating to his productiveness under various conditions, his development, 

 his vital history, the duration of life, and the causes bringing about his 

 death can only satisfactorily be known through the averages obtained 

 from the study of many individuals, that is to say, by the statistical 

 method. 



The function of vital statistics as a branch of sanitarv science is such 



